I have literally finished with the Stereosonic Festival and ready to clunk out at home. On the way to my car, a friend calls me: “PARTY IN THE CITY TONIGHT JAMES!”. The problem is that I’m wearing this giant toothpaste costume, and its covered in dust, dried sweat, and spilled drinks from the hours prior. “Don’t know if your costume will get in, but try anyway!” is the reply to my question. Okay, good enough.

An hour later and I have arrived. Dress code here is Smart Casual, but I have a strong suspicion that they are very lenient tonight regarding dress code, due to Stereosonic removing pretty much more than half of the crowds from the city’s clubs tonight. Suspicion confirmed, as the security allows the giant toothpaste costume through without any questions. The toothpaste party continues! Here we go!

Most of the crowd @ 2AM

Sassy Saturdays @ World Square Pub (Formerly known as Equilibrium)Assessment Time: 12:50AM – 3:00AM Opening Hours: Unknown (Facebook page states 8PM, but I think 10PM?) – 3:00AM tonight. Lockout: Unknown. Address: 680 George St, Sydney. Google Map Link: http://g.co/maps/wvqjz Venue Website:http://www.worldsquarepub.com.auPromoter Website: Appears to be a multiple promoter event. Dynamic Entertainment (http://www.dynamicau.com) & SyndicateEvents.com.au and others.Occurrence: Every Saturday since September 2011 Outside Line: A handful of people, but we got in within 5 minutes. Dress Code / Door Policy: As mentioned before, usually a no daggy clothing policy applies, but due to Stereosonic being on, the dress code was pretty much open. Costumes and hats were freely allowed in. Though marty was asked to remove his wig when he was inside. Entry Fee / Cover Charge: You would have thought I remembered how much the charge was here. Last time I was here at this event (no review was written) it was $20, but from the depths of my memory it MAY have been $25, but I cannot remember. Either way, it is at least $20 for full entry. If you are on the guestlist, a discount probably applies before either midnight or 11PM. You will need to contact a promoter for exact details on this one. Guestlist: If you can find a promoter, go through them, otherwise send an email to: Youngnsassy.saturdays@gmail.com Inside: Previous weeks had the event held upstairs but tonight it appears that only downstairs was open. Perhaps they expected a low turnout tonight. Regardless, enter into the ground level to enter the “stand around” atrium like area, with dancefloor on the right to hold about 80-120 people. In front of you is the corner of the bar. It extends down the left side where there are lounges and tables. On the left is the outdoor smoking area. it’s a long space and enough for most people to get a lounge seat or a table. Cloak Room: No cloak room facilities tonight. Bar Prices / Line: Unknown, but you could get service pretty much right away. Bathroom Facilities: Pretty clean and maintained well tonight. Eviction Count: None spotted. There were not that many people here tonight anyway. DJs: Dirty Dex for most of the night. Music Style: Pop, House, RnB , and many “Songs dedicated to the people from Stereosonic” – mostly LMFAO songs or something house related lol. All from the same DJ so minimal song repeating, if any.Crowd: Mostly Asian tonight. It’s a mix of local and international Asians. also as the night progressed on, the crowd became more and more comprised of people dropping in from Stereosonic. I would suspect that without the Stereosonic crowd, tonight would have been pretty dead, as are the clubs out there. Rest of the crowd were a handful of South Asians/ Indians, and some Caucasians. Ratio: Despite low numbers, the ratio was fairly even throughout most of the night.

Just over a year ago the default club I would go to for free entry and a dance was Star Bar on George St. Then I got sick of it .. the overheating, the majority of girls not speaking english, slippery floors, and an endless orgy of sleazy guys. A self imposed 12 month ban from Star Bar and its after party venue, Cheers, was made. Well, it has been a year and tonight it was time to come back.. here we go!

Dropping by: Fridays @ Star Bar – We got in at around after midnight. The dance area is upstairs on the top level , while the ground and underground levels are more drinking areas with no dancing at all going on– Cover Charge / Entry Fee: Free all night– Lockout: None– Closing Time: 3:00AM– Website: http://www.starbar.com.au– Address: 600 George St (Opposite the Event Cinemas complex)– Outside Line: 3 people – the line progresses pretty quickly. – Dress Code / Door Policy: No large groups of guys, Dress neat casual or smart casual. Do not dress daggy. If the bouncers ask if you are on the guestlist, you haven’t met their requirements for entry. Most people are dressed casually or smart casually.– Inside (top level dancefloor): Nothing has changed. The dancefloor holds 200 or so people with surrounding lounges. Podium at the front for the girls and two podiums at the back for the paid dancers. Two bars supply the beverages for the crowd tonight– Cloak Room: None– Music Style: Pop, Top 40. The DJ plays music videos that play on the big screen. There is very minimal layering/mixing , and songs are played for their entire duration.– Crowd & Ratio: A mix of everything. I would say half the crowd is International Asian. The rest consist of Indians, Africans, Caucasians, and some local populace. Many people here are backpackers or travellers who have no idea what is a good place to visit, and plonk into the first free entry place they see on George St, in this case being Star Bar. The ratio was definitely more guys than girls in here, but pretty much all the girls can’t speak English. – Entertainment: They’ve added professional podium dancers now! I was very impressed with that. They dance at the back to the entertainment of the crowd. – Atmosphere: Pretty busy on the dancefloor. However it does become stuffy on the dancefloor. This combined with the constant spilling of drinks on the floor, the lack of lighting and dominance of guys in here added to the somewhat seedy atmosphere. Nothing has changed.

I was at a friends farwell earlier in the night and it finished around 1:00AM at Hotel CBD (there was a DJ here and a small dancefloor, but not enough to warrant a write up), so I didn’t really have much time to go clubbing. So came the idea to try to sneak into Ivy and Establishment! After miserably failing and being stopped by security, we dropped by the closest place nearby that was free and would let us in – Jackson’s on George.

Half the dancefloor at Jacksons on George

Atmosphere

Nothing much has changed except there were heaps of people on the dancefloor! Amazing. The epileptic strobe lighting was still here, giving patrons small headaches, the music was still loud as well. It was pretty dark in here as well. see the video:

Free grind!!I stood there on the top podium doing a little dance, and suddenly I feel a girls breasts grind behind me. She’s pretty aggressive, and that can only mean one thing – a drunk girl!! Woohoo!! I turn around and with excitement face my suitor, who turned out to be drunk alright – but one knows when a short fat chick is grinding you.

We had just finished an epic day at Future Music Festival, and my body was about to go into shock. I was going through a mini-hangover from the drinking earlier in the day. I was starving, I was thirsty, I was tired from the walking and dancing. My body was royally screwed over and crying for some rest. But you know.. it was only midnight and the night was still young… Haymarket Hotel was nearby so I scoffed down some nutrients from a Korean restaurant and then I went down for a little visit.. here we go!

Dress Code / Door Policy: As stated on the door “STRICT DRESS CODE APPLIES.. Guys collared shirts or jackets are essential – no sportswear, shorts or runners”. I was still wearing my American Indian outfit from Future Music Festival a few hours earlier. It was just brown pants with the indian top on, non-collared. I walked up to the scary looking security woman. She looks at me and my outfit and lets me in – telling the girls at the counter “Don’t worry let him in – He’s alright!!!”. Hell yeah – Chief Breaking wind is awesome! (Edit 24/03/10 – Truth be told, the promoters knew about Future Music Festival and apparently have ‘relaxed’ the dress code for tonight for any FMF party goers)Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 Guestlist: Discount if on list. email themarketvip@gmail.com – free entry before 10:30 . Before I got in, some people spoke with me and said I could pretend to be on “David’s guestlist”. However when I got to the counter, guestlists were finished at 12am, so it was no longer relevant. I know the promoter, but only if he were here tonight I could’ve scored free entry. Inside: Promotional material claims 3 levels. Well its 3, but more 2 and a half. Bottom level is the Mi Cocktail lounge, and is very loungey, and dark. It has a bar and the lounge area is cut into 3 smaller areas, and for the promoters point of view it is presumed these can be used for birthday events. Ground level is where the main bar is and main dancefloor is. The actual dancefloor itself is very small. As small as the one they have at Bar 333. (Yes, they do have a dancefloor, its that small) – about 4 x 5 metres square. Even the bar here is bigger than the floor. Stools are everywhere around. Top level upstairs hangs over the bar and lounge area, to overlook the ground floor. I didnt go upstairs because I was told a group of gangsters were chilling out over there. (All the gansters have matching leather jackets with their gang sign emblazoned on the back) This is where also the DJ is spinning his tracks. Cloak Room: None Bar: I didn’t drink tonight DJs: Kai, Willtown, Biggie, Beef, Nam (obtained for the 20th March event, but these are usually the same DJs for the weeks prior). Music: RnB, HipHop, House Mashups. I can’t believe they have one DJ to service all 3 levels here. Could it be a money saving exercise? Who knows, it’s a different approach though. Crowd: Asian, and mostly older. There is a 30th birthday party here, and I see some other asians I recognise around the 25 year old age mark.Entertainment: No extra dancers or MC that I could recall, but there probably was an MC Atmosphere: It was busy, but it was not at capacity as it was a few weeks ago when I tried to get in. Interesting. Half the asians being at Future Music Festival and going home afterwards may have been a factor. 360 view video from the ground floor dancefloor

Never in the history of my RnB clubbing career for 4 short years have I been bombarded with promotional material for the Grand Opening of this night. Facebook, email, posters, more facebook, more email, more posters. You would expect them to do door knocking as well. The previous event at V-Bar had finally closed and the promoters, Urban Agent, have had success on their 40/40 Saturday Nights at Brooklyn – “why not do a Friday one as well?” They think. It’s an ambitious launch, to replicate the experience of a Shanghai nightclub with waitresses and limo service to the venue from a pick up spot at world square. A friend wants to check it out, so a guestlist was organised, and I was keen to see how Brooklyn has changed since the new promoters took over. So here we go!

Shanghai Nights @ Brooklyn Hotel Sydney

Assessment Time: 10:30 – 3:00amWebsite: http://www.urbanagent.com.au Address: Cnr George and Grovenor Street, Sydney Dress Code / Door Policy: Dress code applies. Collared shirt for guys. However casual would have gotten away with it tonight.Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Guestlist: Well well well.. this is a special point. One can usually send in a guestlist and get a $5 discount or more. Tonight, as we enter the club, the flat fee was $25, and ALL GUESTLISTS WERE CANCELLED. What the fuck! It was only 10:30. Well, apparently they were allowed to do it, because there were so many fucking people outside. They could have charged $30 or $40 and people would still have probably paid up. Total fucking rort. Inside: A main bar dance area to hold 100 or so people with DJ elevated a metre or so above the floor. Central circular bar. Second bar at the back to primarily serve the back outdoor courtyard. The courtyard holds 2 or 300 people. A second DJ resides here as well.Cloak Room: I can’t remember, but it was a reasonable price – $4 or something for an item. Bar: I did not drink tonight, but they had $3.50 for shot based drinks until midnight. Much more reasonable than $17 vodka red bulls the last time I was here. DJ: Unknown Music: RnB inside the main room. Mixed as a professional does – choruses only to keep the crowd going with the occasional commercial house song thrown in. Crowd: Mostly if not all asian. The occasional white person and indian clubber were also represented tonight. Entertainment: MC for the main room at night. Promoters giving out lanyards the entire night like hotcakes, I suspect it was because the lanyards had the old V-Bar “Amber” event printed on them, rendering these lanyards throwaway material. By the end of the night everybody including myself had two of these things. Head promoter is throwing out free T-shirts out to the crowd. Nice. There is also a free shuttle service from world square to Brooklyn, if you book ahead, but why World Square? My suspicion is partly to show all the people lining up ouside of Flow: “Hey, you guys going to Flow, do you get a stretch hummer? nope. we rule and you drool”. That is my conspiracy theory. (Promoters have since dropped the Stretch Hummer promotion). Later around midnight, a dancing chinese dragon came in, which had blinking lights and everything. That was pretty impressive, even though Chinese New Year was last month. Also being the grand opening night, confetti is sprayed everywhere amongst the crowd. It’s hard to not like and hate this place at the same time. To top it off, there’s also a BBQ out in the back. They’ve gone all out here. Atmosphere: Packed like sardines inside, smokey in the back outside area. Inside the vibe was good, but still too packed for my liking. Keep reading for more details on my thoughts on this whole setup

Funky Buddha @ World Square Pub (Equilibrium): Saturday 26th December 2009
Assessment Time: 23:45 – 1:30am??Website: http://www.funkybuddha.com.auAddress: Address: 680 George St Sydney (Formerly Equilibrium)Dress Code: Casual ok. Guys wore smart casual, girls wore dresses.Door Policy: You will be rejected if you are a group of guys. You will be told to leave if there are not enough girls. This is apparently WSP policy. At least they’re honest.Entry Fee / Cover Charge: I forget. $20 I think.Guestlist: See WebsiteInside: Upstairs room to hold a small group of 200, dark. Also downstairs open area for Trance to hold 50 or so people. Well lit.Cloak Room: NoneBar: $5 Gin and TonicsMusic: RnB upstairs, typical contemporary and classic songs. Downstairs area was the trance area, which was a welcome surprise.Crowd: Almost entirely AsianEntertainment: MC UpstairsAtmosphere: Pretty packed. Pretty, pretty packed. The whole city was pretty packed – it always happens that Boxing Day never disappoints in terms of crowd attendance.

We spent a good 2 hours at Pavillion dancing then it reached around 12:30, where everybody typically leaves. It was time to find another club, but we just ended up walking around half of the Sydney CBD area checking out the typical clubs…. so here we go!

11 Quick Club reviews as seen from outside the club aka Window Shopping – 19th December 2009. (Northern Sydney CBD)

Saturdays @ Star Bar on George St
– Packed. However we had overdosed lately on Star Bar and its amusing crowd of non-english speaking tourists. It was a no go tonight, no matter how tempting it was to go inside there.

PS. I no longer write reviews when I visit star bar, as I visit this place too much.

Saturdays @ Arthouse on Pitt St (1am)
– Tonight was not an ‘Asian’ night (Fame), but it was a white-crowd event. House music was playing outside, and there was no line outside – it looked pretty shit inside from the outside. There was a cover charge.

Saturdays @ The Vault on Pitt St
– We walked by this bar and heard RNB music playing! Whoa, we have to try it out. We walk up to the entrance and there is a smallish dance floor with about 15 people dancing on it – it was almost dead, but better than Pavillion. However the bouncer refused us entry on the excuse of ‘a private function’. We were 4 guys so it was understandable, but the private function excuse didn’t seem congruent, as there was no second person to confirm a guestlist. Whatever, it was dead.

Saturdays @ Coolabar
– Music is pumping out, tape and escalators are in operation to the bar upstairs. There are two people outside. It was on! We know Coolabar is a shithole, but we want to wow the crowd inside, if there was one.

We run up but the two people inside tell us we can’t go inside, as the place is closed. What!?! You wonder why some places are even open at all if they are closing at 1.30am on a Saturday night.

Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar
– The line is shorter than usual, but there *is* a line, which is better than the other places so far. Entirely asian, and RNB playing outside, it is tempting to go inside, but all four of us were not big fans of paying $25 to go inside. People inside had santa hats on. We could see Jason the resident Korean bum dancer hogging the podium from the outside.

Security came up and spoke with us. We had a short fun chat and perved on some girls walking by, you know, typical man stuff. Security was called to kick out a drunk person. Moments later he is walking out with a drunk girl and 3 of her girlfriends supporting her. haha, it is not classy at all to see a drunk girl, let me tell you that. Security tells the girls it is all ok, and wraps his arms around the two girls beside him. LOL omg he is hitting on drunk girls outside of thd club – I want to be a bouncer now!!! haha, what a sneaky sleaze.

Funky Buddha @ Verandah Bar on Castlereagh St (Martin Place)
Here they recently opened the trance room again (after a 3 or 4 year absence). Cover is $20, crowd is asian, music is RNB and trance.

We ask some girls who left Funky Buddah if it was any good.
“Average” was the reply. It was in other words, shit. There was, though, a line outside, so it must be somewhat ok.

I do want to check it out as it’s been a while, and I have to see how the Trance room looks now.
Saturdays @ Red Room Hotel Chambers on Castlereagh St (Martin Place)
We were able to peek inside from the entrance – and even though it looked crowded, it didn’t seem like a fun atmosphere. Music was old school RNB, with a cover charge of $20 and an asian crowd.

Tank Nightclub (Bridge lane)
OneLove moved to the Bourbon about a month ago, and we did not know if there was any event, so we took a punt and walked here. It was, unfortunately, closed. (At the time writing, Onelove @ the Bourbon has also shut its doors)… I think I might start a new event here! ha.

20/20 @ Brooklyn Hotel (George St Circular Quay)
Ever since Privilege closed for renovations a few weeks ago, promoters Hypnotize moved their Saturday event to Brooklyn and joined with Urban Agent to help out. The result is that my favourite place to go for free drunk girls and $17 Vodka Red Bulls has turned into a cover charged event full of not so drunk people. I yearn for the former glory days of seediness.

I peek inside the main rnb room and it is pretty packed. I go around the back and look down in the outdoor courtyard area where they are playing house/trance. Back in the no-cover charge days, the place usually had 5-10 people dancing max, while the others sit and watch. Now with the help of the promoters, the entire back area as PACKED. Jesus fucking christ I could not believe what I was seeing – Brooklyn Hotel actually packed out! I could not see any concrete, it was just a sea of people standing up, dancing and cheering. It looked pretty awesome. The bartenders must be having a hard time adjusting to actually having to work non-stop.

However my friends, still don’t want to go inside. They are pretty adamant about not going inside here, considering the crappy times they had the last few times. haha.

Also, regular patrons here (i.e. the islanders) were lining up to get in, not knowing that they need to pay entry. There were some outside, thinking of other places to go. So the crowd inside was a mix of islanders, asians and aussies. Cover charge I am guessing is $20. Based on what I saw, it looks good.

Sienna @ Establishment on George St
We are just walking by. They’re playing house music, though I had thought Sienna was an RNB event. The crowd is dominantly Euro, and cover charge is $20. I do need to check this place out too. It looked pretty busy from what we could see

Saturdays @ Ivy on George St
Loud, and looking quite busy. We can’t see inside from the street but we can hear people cheering from the inside. Sounds like fun. Am definitely going to spend a night here one day next year.

Arrivederci
By this time we have given up, and we have managed to end up back where we started – standing outside Star Bar. I was dying to do any form of dance, but friends were puffed out from walking up and down the CBD for 2 hours. Fair enough, but I wish they were keen for a dance!! So we called it a night.

Recommendation
If I had to pick a club tonight, it would be 20/20 @ Brooklyn Hotel.